The records of parliament at this date present a remarkable example of the mutability of fortune. Robert Miln had risen by trade to considerable distinction, and, in the latter years of Charles II., was one of two persons who farmed the entire customs and excise revenue of Scotland. He acquired lands—Binny and Barnton, in Lothian—and in 1686 was raised to a baronetage. He had, however, been unfortunate in some of his latter transactions, and become involved in large responsibilities for others; so that now he was in danger of having his person laid hold of by his creditors. On his petition, the parliament gave him a personal protection. Serious people, who remembered that Sir Robert, as bailie of Linlithgow, had conducted the burning of the Covenant there in 1662, would smile grimly, and draw inferences, when they heard of him as a supplicant in fear of a jail. Wodrow tells us that he subsequently died in bankrupt circumstances in ‘the Abbey;’[237] that is, the sanctuary of Holyrood. [Sidenote: SEP. 20.] Warrant was given by the Privy Council to the keeper of the Tolbooth, to provide meat and drink to the prisoners under his care, as per a list furnished by the Lord Advocate, at the rate of four shillings Scots _per diem_, to be paid by the Treasury. From various orders by the Privy Council, it appears that a groat a day was at this time deemed a proper allowance for the subsistence of an imprisoned witch, recruit, or any other person in humble life dependent for aliment on the public. [Sidenote: OCT.] Jean Gordon, widow of Mr William Fraser, minister of Slaines, [Sidenote: 1698.] Aberdeenshire, had been for some years decayed in body and mind, so as probably to be a considerable burden to her surviving relatives. One morning in this month, she was found dead in her bed, and after the usual interval, she was duly interred. Soon after, some suspicions arose against Mr William Fraser, minister of the gospel, stepson of the deceased, to the effect that he had poisoned and bled her to death, although, as he alleged, he had been absent at Aberdeen at the time of her death. A warrant being obtained, the body was raised from the grave, and examined. No external mark of violence was discovered, and science did not then give the means of detecting the internal consequences of poison. It was resolved, however, to revive, in this instance, a mode of discovering murder, which has long been ranked with vulgar superstitions. The body being laid out in open view, Mr William Dunbar, minister of Cruden, prayed to God that he would discover the authors of any violence done to the deceased lady, if any there were; and then the persons present, one by one, including the suspected stepson, touched the body; ‘notwithstanding whereof there appeared nothing upon the body to make the least indication of her having been murdered.’ A precognition reporting all these circumstances, and making no charge against any one, was sent to the Lord Advocate.